ZeRo to take break from competitive Smash until next iteration is released

Gonzalo "ZeRo" Barrios, considered to be the greatest Super Smash Bros. for Wii U player in the game's history, is taking a break from competitive Smash until the release of a new game, the player announced on Twitter Friday.

Along with the release of PGRv4 I am also announcing the future of my competitive journey in Smash 4. I've attached 3 more pictures to this tweet which contain my letter to the Smash community.

"Essentially, I already accomplished what I wanted, I got way more than I wanted," ZeRo told theScore esports. "In some ways I feel kind of greedy to keep going, because at the same time I already did everything that I wanted with this at least. I want to tackle all the challenges. In this case, I want to see how far I can take, if I put a lot of time into Twitch I want to see how far I can go there. So that's another challenge that I have, and essentially, when something new happens with Smash, then I want to be the best at that again."

ZeRo, who was recently ranked first on the latest edition of the Panda Global Smash 4 Rankings, is best known for winning 53 tournaments in a row between 2014 and 2015, the longest tournament win streak in esports history. He recently placed second at the 2GG Championship and first at DreamHack Denver 2017.

ZeRo says that his stepping back from competitive play will not affect his relationship with Team SoloMid, and he remains signed to the organization. Instead of representing them as a competitor, he'll be representing them as a streamer and content creator.

"I'm still going to be with TSM and everything, I'm just going to be doing like, my role is going to be different," ZeRo said. "Instead of me representing them majorly at tournaments, I'm going to be representing them more in terms of streaming, content, those kinds of things you know. I have a really close relationship with them, I really like Reginald, Andy, so you know, I'm happy to be with my family, to put it that way."

In a statement posted to twitter, ZeRo says he is considering going to tournaments to commentate, or to make guest appearances, but will not be competing until a new iteration of Smash Bros. is released.

ZeRo will not be attending Genesis 5 next week, marking the first time he hasn't entered Genesis' Smash 4 tournament. ZeRo won Genesis 3 and placed third at Genesis 4. ZeRo is also the first Smash 4 EVO champion, and has won over 100 Smash 4 tournaments in his career.